


Drive

by TheMagicMicrobus (CallMeCaptainOrSir)



Series: Peaceful Easy Feeling [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depressed Tony Stark, Depression, Desert, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeCaptainOrSir/pseuds/TheMagicMicrobus
Summary: The desert is warm and safe and doesn't care who you are or what you've done. Tony wanted to feel safe.Basically, Tony's last thoughts.----You asked, so I wrote the sequel, and this is now a series.





	Drive

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason all of my writing is strangely paced fics about depression. Oh well.

It was a cliff. A cliff over a dry, empty canyon. He had considered an ocean view. It would have brought him full circle, finding a life in a desert and ending it in the sea. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t take himself back there again. Call it cowardice, call it what you will. _ I won’t be there to hear it. _ People thought the desert should have been his trigger but it never was. The desert meant freedom and control and escape. The water was pain. The darkness, the smallness, the crushed feeling of damp stone walls. That was what kept him awake. Why he hadn’t actually slept in 50 hours.The desert is warm and safe and doesn't care who you are or what you've done. Tony wanted to feel safe.

So he cut the brakes on Howard's favorite car and drives. 10, 15, 30, 60 miles above the speed limit. Who fucking cares. No seatbelts, we die like men. Tony laughs then cries and he can’t tell the last time he did either. Wishes he’d had a drink before leaving but it was too late now and he wanted a clear head for this. He wanted to remember this. The moment he knew he could turn back and didn’t. For as long as he could he wanted to remember.

He crossed state lines.

It was so dark out here. Eyes on the road, Tony didn’t look up. Space used to be big and bright and beautiful. Now it was cold and dark and full of horrors. 

_ How did you survive the wormhole? _

_ Will I survive this one?  _ The universe hated him. How many suicide missions did a man have to take before one killed him? He flew a nuke into goddamned space.  _ Please, God, just let me die this time. I can’t be pieced back together again. There’s only so much of me left. _

_ When do I become more machine than man? _

The desert was a comfort and it was warm and heavy and pressed him into his seat. But he could breathe for the first time in years and that was enough. No music but his thoughts were quite. When there’s no future you don’t have to think. Just drive. Drive and drive and drive.

Flying without a suit was a novel experience. Tony was glad to have it be his last one. Drive and drive and driv-

 

* * *

 

 

_ Pepper _

_ I’ve been dying since before we even met. You know nothing ever moved fast enough for me. I just sped it up a little. My lungs, my liver, my heart, bad guy number three with a gun I wasn’t quite good enough to dodge. Howard. Steve. Me. Hell, someone jumping out at me on Halloween could have done me in with the shape I’m in. _

_ Pepper, I could never be saved, I wouldn’t let it happen. I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted to run myself into the ground until I couldn’t see the mess I’d made. I fought you every step of the way. Every time you picked me up and put out my fires, I wanted you to let me burn. I’ve fought so hard to die without killing myself. To be able to chalk it all up to circumstance and mistakes and I couldn’t face myself. This is probably the only brave thing I’ve ever actually done. The only good thing. Accountability, right? _

_ Thanks for everything. Sorry that I hurt you in the end. _

_ TS _


End file.
